Breakfast on Pluto (2005)

Bound and Dragged

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Writer/director Neil Jordan adapts another novel by Patrick McCabe (The Butcher Boy), but the results are far less exhilarating. Cillian Murphy (Red Eye) goes all out as Patrick "Kitten" Braden, a cooing cross-dresser in 1970s Ireland. Dropped on a parish doorstep and raised by foster parents, he strikes out for London to find his real mother. Patrick glides through a series of small adventures, each accompanied by its own colorful supporting characters. Jordan tries to give the film a sense of whimsy with its selection of bizarre pop music and its little CGI birdies who narrate the tale in subtitled twitters, but the overall film lacks a sense of urgency, as if Patrick had all the time in the world to get where he's going. Liam Neeson co-stars.